Tribute To Don J. Briel, 1947–2018

Don briel was born on January 28, 1947, the feast day of Thomas Aquinas, but his contributions to church and academy were inspired by and focused on the work of Blessed John Henry Newman. A student of the legendary Frank O'Malley at Notre Dame, Briel did graduate work in literature at Trinity University in Dublin before receiving a doctorate in Catholic theology at Strasbourg for his dissertation, Isaac Williams and Newman: The Oxford Movement Controversy of 1838–1841. After brief stints at the University of San Francisco and St. Mary's University in Kansas, Briel landed at the (then College) University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1981, where he was named the first lay chair of the theology department. Briel was not a prolific publisher (though he was the general editor of CUA Press's collected works of Christopher Dawson), but instead sacrificed what is considered the accepted mode of academic success in order to focus on making Newman's university and collegiate ideals come to life on the contemporary campus. His major achievement was to create the first and largest Catholic Studies program in the country at the University of St. Thomas.

Inspired by Newman's vision of Catholic scholars and students forming a community of interdisciplinary learning centered on what Augustine called gaudium in veritate [joy in the truth]—and Christopher Dawson's conviction that Catholic education should be centered on the study of the two-millennia history of Catholic thought and culture—Briel launched a program and then a department of Catholic Studies at St. Thomas. He also founded a journal (Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture) for interdisciplinary Catholic thought and three institutes that would provide Catholic formation for faculty at St. Thomas. The success of his original program led to the founding of dozens of Catholic Studies programs across the country at both Catholic and public universities. After his retirement from St. Thomas in 2014, Briel received the Blessed John Henry Newman Chair of Liberal Arts at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. There he engaged in intellectual formation and planning while continuing to advise many other scholars around the country and abroad trying to make Newman's vision come alive both on Catholic campuses and on public ones, where the vast majority of Catholics study. Along with his vision for higher education, Briel will be remembered for his practical wisdom in enacting it, his belief in excellence ("mediocre" was a favorite term of his to describe work that stayed in the shallows and did not reach for excellence), and his fidelity to Christ and the Church. He was a mentor, a spiritual and intellectual father, and a friend. He died on February 15, 2018, the stational feast day of Newman's titular church, San Giorgio Velabro in Rome. Requiescat in pace.